From the Waterfront to Watts: Tim McOsker on Fighting for the “One-Five”

The Planning Report spoke with Los Angeles City Councilmember Tim McOsker—who represents the 15th District, home to both the Port of Los Angeles and the communities of Watts, Wilmington, and San Pedro—on the challenges and responsibilities of his first term in office. McOsker elaborates on the efforts of the City’s Personnel Committee to safeguard essential services and optimize the city’s workforce during a historic budget shortfall. He also addresses the City’s pushback against ICE activity at Terminal Island, LA28 Olympic Sailing venues, tariff and trade uncertainties, and the long-term infrastructure and clean-energy investments required to ensure a sustainable and just future for the Port and its surrounding neighborhoods.

Tim, you bring decades of experience as a lawyer, a civic leader, former CEO of AltaSea, and at L.A. City Hall. How does this background impact what you prioritized in your first term on the City Council?

First of all, my background allowed me to hit the ground running. 

Before joining the City of LA, I had experience doing city attorney work for other jurisdictions, which proved invaluable when I transitioned into similar work here. That foundation helped guide my time in the Mayor’s Office and, later, in working with private entities to align their goals with those of the city.

My time in the nonprofit sector also underscored how challenging it is to carry out meaningful work on tight budgets, while navigating permitting processes and forming effective partnerships with both city governments and local communities.

What all this has done is put me in a position where I understand the unique needs of each neighborhood in the One-Five, from Watts to the waterfront. I’m able to identify folks who are doing good work, whether they’re in the public sector or the private sector, and partner with them. 

Sometimes in the public sector, it’s just working with my partners in different departments to help them through the legal morass, as well as to understand the policy position of the city, so that we can get there. Even more importantly, it’s working with the great nonprofits to not only understand their mission but also align my mission with theirs.

I feel like all of these different jobs I’ve done have put me in a position, in some small way, to be a connector — to help folks get to their goals, especially where they align with my goals on behalf of the people of the One-Five.

You serve as Council Chair of the Personnel and Hiring Committee, Vice Chair of Trade, Travel & Tourism, and as a member of the Budget & Finance, Government Efficiency, Public Safety, and LA Recovery Committees. 

With this wide array of policy responsibilities, TPR readers would welcome your take on the recently approved 2026 LA City budget. Are you satisfied with its priorities, especially as they relate to your district?

Well, I will say that I will never be satisfied. The day you’re satisfied, you’re done. 

Back to the committees, I asked for every one of those committees. I asked to be on Personnel because Personnel is the greatest expense line in our budget, and I think that’s probably more important to me than being on Budget and Finance, being on Public Safety, or even being on Triple-T, which deals with the airport and the port, because it is working with our number one asset and our number one expense line, which is the employees of the city.

We had a very difficult budget. We showed a nearly $1 billion deficit. The Mayor’s proposal — which is her prerogative — put together a budget that detailed good priorities, her priorities, but also showed a layoff of 1,650 employees. I was gratified to work really closely with Katy Yaroslavsky, Chair and a great leader of our Budget Committee, to make sure that we put as many of those positions back in place as possible. We got to 1,000.

It was really important for us to put those positions back in because those are the hands, feet, brains, and back of every city service, and to lose that many employees would have decimated basic city services.

Now, on the Personnel Committee, we’re meeting every week to go through those approximately 650 individuals who are slated for layoff, and to look at each one of those functions and come up with ways where we can move generally funded positions that are slated for layoff and move them into specially funded, or proprietary funded, or enterprise funded positions that are of a like classification. Why are we doing that? 

Because if we can come up with ways to keep experienced people who get the work done, and move them from one department to another, we will not only hang on to good people and salvage their careers, but more importantly, keep as fulsome a city service as we possibly can in each one of our basic city service categories.

To follow up: a growing number of the public perceive, reflected in polls, that L.A. city services are deteriorating and that there’s a lack of accountability. (See: TPR’s interview with Miguel Sangalang about the challenges of maintaining LA’s light system.)

Are Angelenos likely to accept, given the budget constraints, a lower standard of city services?

With fewer dollars, it is unavoidable that we will see a diminution in some services. It is going to happen. Sadly, that is going to be the case when we have such a disparity between our income and our expenses.

I do think that this exercise—and I don’t mean to diminish what we’re doing by calling it an exercise—will make us a far more efficient organization, because we are moving around functions and people, to be able to do as much work as we possibly can with the dollars that we have. I also feel that the work that we are doing in the Personnel Committee and on the Budget Committee is giving us this moment in time that we can’t waste. We have to utilize it. We have to put ourselves in a position where we’re looking at every one of our services and saying: is this a core function in the city? Is this something that we should be spending money on?

At the same time, they are laying off folks who change out street lights, and we found—over and over and over again in the Budget Committee—the answer was no to many of those questions. We reduced in some areas to make sure that we could increase in other areas, and street lighting is a good example. We also went through the exercise of saying: what is the sustainability future?

Using street lighting as an example, we had a number of cuts in street lighting. Everyone will say: there are too many lights out in the City of Los Angeles, there’s too much theft of copper wire and vandalism on our street lights. We did a short-term move to make sure that we cut in some areas to put people back into street lighting.

We also turned to the street lighting director and said: Give us a sustainability plan. 

A plan for the streetlight assessment citywide, and make sure that we put ourselves in a position where we can have the right funding to be able to replace the lights. I’m getting nerdy about this, but it’s an important example. The safety mechanisms at the bottom of the poles will prevent theft and vandalism, and also, solar panels—small, solar-paneled arrays—on the top of the lights will reduce the amount of copper used. Then we’re less reliant on DWP and have, at the very least, backup power for those lights should the system go out.

It’s an opportunity for us to take heed of the fact that, yes, people are saying that we’re providing less service, and that sidewalks, streets, curbs, and gutters are not being attended to, because they’re right. We need ways to reallocate dollars and put them into the things people want.

Some of your Council colleagues are concerned that in the last Charter change, years ago, the police chief was given absolute authority over the department’s budget and overtime. Consequently, some feel that the Mayor and City Council actually have no real budgetary control, given officer overtime is a significant expense. Could you address this issue?

I can. This comes up in different places—and has over the first two or three years I’ve been doing this job—where folks, very understandably, express a concern about the fact that the City Council is not directly involved in what the Chief does or how the Police Department functions. In our Charter, through the Christopher Commission report and reforms, you have a Mayor-appointed Police Commission that directs the Chief, and the Chief gives direction to the Police Department.

That was done in large part to make sure that we don’t over-politicize or politicize the Police Department. It comes up in different contexts, but I think it’s important to be reminded that we do not want to be in a position where eight votes of the City Council, or ten votes on a Mayoral override, are directing how police services are done in the City of Los Angeles. We must maintain those Charter protections, where we have a commission—open and public, and everybody can always do their job better by the way—a Chief who has responsibility for directing the forces.

I don’t want to put us in a position to say, because of overtime, the Council should be directing where police forces go and where they don’t go. We need to keep those decisions in the hands of professionals and not politicize them because the truth of the matter is, overtime is not going to be optional. How it happens might be optional, and how broad the tactical alert could have variances, but I don’t want the City Council to be in a position to say, “No, we don’t think that this is a situation that requires a tactical alert and holding over officers.”

Imagine if it were up to the City Council on the morning of the Palisades fire to decide whether or not a firefighter should be held over. That’s not a position that the City Council is built to decide. 

Now, what mechanisms should be in place to make sure that we are careful about how money is spent in the Police Department? 

The Inspector General should always be fulsome and supported. We must ensure the Inspector General has the ability to investigate. The ability to budget the dollars and create constraints on how those dollars are expended makes sense as well—like putting money in the Unappropriated Balance and saying, “If we hit a certain trigger, then the Unappropriated Balance will be considered and we’ll come back and decide.”

I don’t ever want to put City Council members or the Mayor in the field, deciding how police are going to respond to a situation. That’s exactly what the Christopher Commission was trying to avoid.

Pivoting, it appears the White House has put a target on Los Angeles' back, and as a result, ICE agents and troops are stationed and acting within the City. Recently some have been at the Port. 

How have you and City Hall reacted? 

I believe, as our Mayor has said, that the federal government is conducting an experiment on the extent of the power of federal officers and military, and militarizing the peace officers in our City of Los Angeles, to see how far they can go. It feels like an experiment, and I appreciate the Mayor pushing back on that.

We have property in the Port of Los Angeles on Terminal Island, including federal lands as well as other commercial, industrial, city, and state lands. On those federal lands, there’s a federal penitentiary, and there’s also a Coast Guard station.

Community members who observed ICE agents and other federal officers coming in and out of the Coast Guard station set up something called the Harbor Peace Patrol. It’s regular residents who went to the gates of the Coast Guard station and took pictures of everybody coming in and out. They took pictures of faces, if they could see them, but many of them were covered. They also took pictures of car types and license plates, and began to assemble the information. Some of the same cars and some of the same agents were being seen at these well-publicized raids across Southern California.

They also identified what may be evidence of wrongdoing and even unconstitutional activity, as some observed different cars with the same license plate, so license plate switching was happening, and other license plates were blacked out with construction tape. They took videos and pictures of all of that and submitted everything. I have spoken out in support of that organization. 

At a certain point, we saw Port Police officers going in and out of the Coast Guard facility. We wanted to know, and I wrote a letter, what the purpose of the Port Police, who work for us, who are equal in assignment to LAPD outside of the port area, was, to make sure that they were not cooperating or involved in the ICE raids. 

They responded with a written statement to assure me that those are just normal patrols, but to be sure, and to have this all be open and public, I’ve invited the Port Police to come to the Trade, Travel & Tourism Committee that has jurisdiction over the port—to give us a report and assurances that our Port Police are not participating in those raids.

We had a press conference with several elected officials demanding that ICE get off the island. You will not be surprised that we have not gotten a response back to that press conference, and we’re also in litigation. 

We’ve been sued by the federal government, trying to compel the City of Los Angeles to participate in their unconstitutional, illegal raids. Of course, we won’t do that. We’ll defend ourselves in that litigation and are joining litigation that the ACLU and other groups filed against the federal government to compel it to act constitutionally.

Tributaries of that answer are of interest, but turning to your One-Five City Council district, speak to the impacts on your constituents of an uneven flow of goods through the Port of LA.

Trade cargo has been down for the last couple of months from tariffs and trade uncertainty. What have been the economic impacts?  

The tariffs have been just bad economic policy for everyone. We could spend a whole interview on how the tariffs have been experienced, but the effects on the Port of Los Angeles have been horrible. We move 40% of all goods that come into the United States in normal times through the Port of Los Angeles and Long Beach, or the San Pedro Bay complex.

We know that our trading partners for the San Pedro Bay complex are typically on the Pacific Rim, in China, and those Pacific Rim partners have been hit harder by the tariffs. Those goods movements were initially way down, and then the President’s inexplicable movement up and down, calling a timeout, and creating all this uncertainty in the tariffs has not been helpful at all.

Boardrooms across the world want certainty, and without that certainty, we’re seeing goods movement down. Now, some goods have to move, so we are seeing some containers come through. But fewer containers, fewer ship calls, means fewer jobs, and fewer jobs in the Port of Los Angeles means fewer dollars in my local economy. 

It’s hitting not just longshoremen, and the women and men who move the goods right off of the ships onto the docks—they’re taking home less pay and getting fewer jobs—but they’re spending fewer dollars in my community. It’s having this ripple effect on restaurants and all of the retail suppliers and other industries that support the women and men who work on the docks. That has been terrible.

Are the current tariffs impacting the Port’s goals and investments intended to decarbonize and sustainably upgrade infrastructure? 

No doubt: It’ll have a very real and delayed effect on all of our efforts to decarbonize the port. Certainly no one else in the country is anywhere close to the San Pedro Bay Complex in working towards a decarbonization of all of our goods movement: with all the yard equipment that services each one of the terminals; we’re working on the trucks that move goods from the terminals into the stream of commerce; and we’ve been working cooperatively with our partners across the Pacific Rim to bring down the carbon footprint of the ships.

All of that requires money. There is no way to do this good work without having a robust, full economy and having strong goods movement. As the goods movement declines, we have less incentive and opportunity for our tenants and the terminals to invest those dollars. To continue to work towards our 2035 goals of being at zero emissions.

I meet with these tenants regularly because we need gigantic investments from the Port of Los Angeles. The Port needs to do well to make these investments in infrastructure, and we need big investments from the Department of Water and Power, which is owned by the shareholders, so they can't just write a check and change everything. 

They have to work with these tenants and the Port as customers. Everybody has to be doing well enough to make these gigantic investments to increase the amount of power that we create. Mostly for electrical power, but all of it—whether hydrogen or electricity—requires investment in infrastructure and equipment to receive plug-ins or hydrogen power. All of it requires a strong economy because if we don’t have income, we can’t collectively reinvest.

Given such investments, how has San Pedro and all of the Port’s adjacent communities changed in the last five years? 

Over the last five to ten years, we have seen a significant change in the relationship between the port communities of Wilmington and San Pedro and the Port of Los Angeles. I like to say that the Hundred Years' War is over. The Hundred Years' War is over because people like Jim Hahn, Antonio Villaraigosa, Eric Garcetti, and now Mayor Bass are making sure that the Port invests in the surrounding communities.

Because living next to a port is great for economic development, for opportunity, for a good job, but it’s terrible. It’s terrible to be so close to an industry that belches noxious emissions. Cleaning up the systems is one part of it. But the other part of it is creating access to the waterfront for residents.

What you’re seeing in Wilmington and San Pedro is something called the Public Access to the Waterfront Investment Plan, setting aside 10% of the operating revenues of the Port of Los Angeles to go back into community—and back into community to create access to the waterfront for real people, for everybody in the state of California. The property is part of a state trust, backed by the City of Los Angeles to manage for the people.

What are we seeing? We’re seeing improvements to promenades—you can walk on the waterfront in Wilmington. We’re seeing pads being established to build restaurants close to the water in Wilmington. We’re seeing the waterfront development—used to be Ports O’ Call—in the San Pedro side becoming West Harbor. We just approved a music venue on the water—6,000+ seats—looking out over the water.

Those are all made possible because of the infrastructure investments, but it also requires private investment to build those restaurants and amenities, like a waterfront music venue. It’s completely changing the face of the harbor, and we’re creating what I hope to be the premier interaction between a strong industrial base and a good visitor-serving interaction with the ocean.

Pivoting to AltaSea. You’ve been both an AltaSea champion and its Executive Director. Some say AltaSea is, after 15 years, an overnight success. Elaborate on AltaSea’s mission and its relationship both to the One-Five, and to the goals that you and the City have for the blue economy?

I do love AltaSea. AltaSea is an idea that was born out of Leonard Aube’s mind. Leonard Aube was a philanthropist and thought leader who has sadly has passed away, but Leonard and Jenny Krusoe and other good folks got together years ago and pitched the idea to the Port of Los Angeles that we could take a piece of land that was underutilized warehouse—a property that would not be used for any time in the future for modern goods movement—and transform that property, which is right next to Warehouse One in San Pedro, into a blue economy incubator.

What is the blue economy? The blue economy is the beneficial use of the ocean to sustain the ocean, to create jobs, and to improve people’s lives. More importantly, the emerging blue economy is coming up with ways where we can create food sources, energy sources, and do scientific developments—in bio-medicine, for example—coming out of the ocean in a way where we are sustaining the ocean for future generations, but coming up with ways where we can power equipment or feed people sustainably.

AltaSea is several acres of warehouse and it leases out sites within the warehouse complex to companies that are doing things like kinetic wave movement to create energy—or ocean farming by raising bivalves and seaweeds for human consumption, for animal consumption, in a way that is going to be way more sustainable for our economy and our world than things we’re doing today.

Another matter of great interest to both the region and you—is the 2028 Olympics and the events and venues that are planned to be within the One-Five. 

Update our readers, as LA28 has not been a very public facing or transparent organization to date.

When I came into office a few years ago, I had a memory from when the City of Los Angeles originally pitched the Olympics for 2032, then it became a shared bid for 2024 and 2028. 

Back then, I knew that sailing had been proposed for the port complex—for LA—because the 1932 Olympics had held sailing events here. But somewhere along the way, after the award, sailing was moved out of LA and over to Long Beach. When I got into office, one of the first things I heard was that there were no Olympic events planned for the One-Five. That didn’t sit right with me.

Building a case to bring sailing back to San Pedro and the harbor area, we made the case clearly: we have strong, consistent winds in the LA Harbor—perfect for sailing. We have built-in viewing stations. We have the infrastructure and capacity that’s far better than what was being proposed elsewhere. After working on this, I’m excited to say it was recently announced that San Pedro and Long Beach will split the Olympic sailing events.

The newer board events—not traditional boat sailing—will happen off Belmont Shore in Long Beach. But all six official sailing disciplines will take place in Hurricane Gulch, right in the Port of LA.

Are you excited about sailing being showcased in your Council District?  

I’m thrilled. Not only is it great to host Olympic events here, but the lead-up gives us a chance to invest in infrastructure, modernize facilities, and improve the berth where spectators will watch the events. It also allows Wilmington and San Pedro to prepare, through investment in restaurants, hotels, and public amenities, to truly host the world. 

I think the Olympic legacy shouldn’t just be in the immediate port area. Arts, culture, and community-based Olympic programming should be spread throughout the One-Five—Watts, Wilmington, San Pedro, Harbor Gateway, and Harbor City, all deserve that spotlight.

Just to highlight Watts for a moment: pound for pound, Watts has produced more athletic, musical, and intellectual talent than anywhere else in the district. It’s a vibrant, extraordinary community with real ties to both the arts and athletics. 

I believe we’ll be working with LA28 to create a true legacy project in Watts—something meaningful that highlights the community’s contributions and serves as a lasting reminder that the 2028 Olympics were here in LA.

Building on your vision for community stewardship, how could LA28 be a catalyst for long-term investment and local agency in communities like Watts? 

When we talk about the Olympics as a catalyst, it’s important, especially given my experience in the private, nonprofit, and public sectors, that we as elected officials focus on putting systems in place that empower both formal and informal organizations to take ownership of their own future. That’s what stewardship is about. I’ll give credit to my colleague Marqueece Harris-Dawson for what he’s doing with Destination Crenshaw—it’s that kind of community-driven initiative we need more of.

Watts is a fantastic example. It’s a community with so much history, talent, and pride. There are organizations in Watts already deeply invested in preserving and celebrating that identity, whether it’s preparing for the 60th anniversary of the Watts Uprising or honoring the poets, athletes, musicians, and thinkers who have come out of Watts. 

One way I believe we can build a real legacy and stewardship—especially around the Olympics—is through a Land Trust in Watts. That’s something I’d like to help establish. It would function similarly to what we did with the Santa Monica Mountains Conservancy.

The idea is to identify and preserve historic community assets, places like the old train station, the Fundi building, or even the old City Hall, which had its own police and fire station, and put them under community stewardship. 

Elaborate on your legacy idea: a Watts’ Land Trust.

By creating a land trust, we can ensure that long after I or any other elected official is gone, the people of Watts still have agency over their future. It allows the community not just to benefit from Olympic-related investment, but to govern and guide how those investments shape the neighborhood long term.

That’s the kind of legacy we should aim for—not just new facilities or one-time events, but structures that give people the power to sustain and grow their communities, in partnership with local, state, and federal government, but truly from the ground up.

Civic concerns have been expressed that there’s been little citywide preparation for both the LA28 Games and for involving and showcasing for the world LA’s extraordinary arts & cultural assets. Are you satisfied that LA28 is on course to deliver what the City promised the Olympic Committee when it proposed to Host? urse to deliver what was promised in its proposal to host the Games?

I think that things have taken us off course—and I would’ve been the first one to tell you that, because I did tell folks that months ago, before sailing came to San Pedro. And I used that as part of my argument as to why I was disappointed.

I will say, it’s not surprising that wildfires, and the declaration by the President of the United States to try to bring Los Angeles to its knees, have put us in a position where it’s hard to focus just on the Olympics. But I’m also really, really confident that we can pull it all together and put ourselves in a position—unlike any other city in the world—to host a great Olympics. I think we can do it.

Only because of time and space, let’s close with a provocative question: When Notre Dame plays USC, who do you personally root for?

Well, I’m going to shock some of my friends here… I’ve come to appreciate USC a lot more over the last few years, especially through my public service. In the past, my old self might’ve had some… let’s say, indelicate answers. 

But my new self has respect, whether it's been working with them on the AltaSea movement or seeing the investments they've made downtown, I do recognize their role. That said, I can’t say I’m a fan. 

I’ll just say I look forward to a good game… that Notre Dame wins by a thousand points.